Every show has it's behind the scenes stories, with the drug use on Laverne and Shirley and how everyone hated Shelly Long on Cheers, but the Flinstones story is by far the most lurid.
Fred was a ribaholic. As the story goes, it started innocently enough with Barney (played by Al Shep) replacing Fred's usual hamburger with a rib eye. It was a good practical joke, Al thought, until he started noticing Fred eating ribs rather than hamburger more and more often.
One day Wilma (played by Sue Shingley) tried to address the issue. Here's what she had to say in an interview: "Well, I went to Fred's dressing room and said, 'Going a little heavy on the ribs, aren't you big guy?' I said it jokingly and thought he would take it as such, but he jumped out of his spa with such anger, and wearing nothing but smirk, I thought I was going to pass out. And he said, 'Listen here *bleep*, If I ever catch you *bleeping* talking about what I *bleeping* do on my own time, I'll grab the elephant vacuum and shove it up your *bleeping* *bleep*.' After that it was all down hill for him."
Well not quite all down hill. There was a brief period where Fred got personal counseling from an unexpected source that nearly turned his life around. Nearly. An interview with his counselor follows: "BAM! BAM! BAM BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM BAM BAM!"
Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam: truer words were never spoken. Yet despite that sage wisdom, Fred continued to spiral downward until his eventaul death in 1972 B.C. When asked on his deathbed what was the cause of his addiction, his last words were both memorable and chilling: "If only that cat would have stayed out for the night."
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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.
